How do you handle a crave

[nsd_user663_4177]

Had quite a few craves today and fought them, just had one 10 mins ago and it felt a big one but instead I sat back Mark was talking I said just having one shhh. I let it ride over me let my body relax to it and it went quite easy not sure if this will work next time but it would be good if it does.

[nsd_user663_4425]

Hi there Trendy,

I've found that when I do have a crave, if I'm near my laptop (or any pc with internet for that matter, including at work) I come on here and have a little read or post a thread/reply and it helps.

Also I'd go give my cat some attention, I'd go over and give her tickles and belly rubs and it made me forget I was craving!

Lottie -x-

[nsd_user663_3936]

Great question!

every time I feel like a cigarette, I jump on these forums and try to find a post by someone new who has just joined the forum.

Then i explain from my own experience how I stopped smoking & how I stay stopped ( ironically this action actually keeps me from smoking )

First I smoked for 20 years

then, I made a date,

then I read & listened to "allen carrs easy way to stop smoking" (again) (great book but I beleive it does not emphasize helping others enough)

Now whenever I feel like a smoke (less & less these days) I jump on these forums & try to help someone else!

This works for me

I love being a non-smoker!

Good Luck

[nsd_user663_4317]

Well done Mel just keep strong

Good post Billy

Drinking water, getting wet is good - hard to keep the cig lit when wet

Keep busy,busy,busy:eek:

You can do this!! Just don't put a cig in your mouth whatever you do and you'll be ok!!

Keep up the good work x

[nsd_user663_4367]

Keep Busy

Yeah I do actually what Angela does, Keep very busy and drink plenty of water, works for me....... I have just got up this morning and could have quite easily had a cig, Dont know why But obviously didnt, Kept busy till I forgot... B strong U will get there

[nsd_user663_3728]

Hi Mel

Just get through them anyway you can we all find our own way of dealing with them

I used to come on here and read or post which always worked for me

Love

Marg xxxxxxxxxx

[nsd_user663_4026]

Me too. Read the posts, post your own. Post to others. I also had an Allen Carr little book of quitting book which I kept on me at all times. Just had handy little quotes in it, no huge long text. x

[nsd_user663_4140]

Billy ur a star

You did it how you are supposed to. You basically embrace the crave. You face it. You stare it down. You let it ride over you. In fact some of them might even be enjoyable.

Your mind does not function properly(the subconscious anyway)... not when it comes to smoking. Until your mind resists inhaling poison gas - don't use it and don't trust it. Reprogram it(the subconscious). Its broken. Your body is smarter than your mind and it can't even think. That goes to show how dumb a mind can be when its on drugs. Use your conscious -- this means you use your logic and common sense -- when you are reading you are in conscious thought, when you are lying down daydreaming - you'll end up in subconscious thought -- stay away from thinking---- you're not really thinking --you're bargaining with a part of the brain that is about as smart as a dog eating its own fecies.

These cravings are next to harmless ----

Woah! wait a minute... did i say next to harmless? Oh yeah sure. As long as you don't let YOUR MIND get involved. There would never be another person who ever smoked another cigarette, if they didn't let that poor old thing called there mind get involved and keep them addicted for years. The physical withdrawal from smoking is not hurtful in any way, there isn't even any pain. But- your mind will make sure all that is false. In your mind- you are going to die, you can't breath, the end of the world is coming, you can't live any more, you have to smoke, you're going to die (actually you are going to die-if you listen to your brain because it is out of its mind!!!!!!! -- did i just say that?

Never mind, none of that is going to happen either... that is just something your mind does to get you to smoke again because it has been permanently trained by the subconscious to send you into survival mode when your man made nicotine level is low - WHY? Why the heck is my body doing this to me. I'll tell you why. Because you just spent 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 years REINFORCING your mind to do that every time you had a withdrawal you satisfied it with more nicotine. Your mind knows nothing else. It has not been trained any other way. It has not been fed other options. It only knows to cry when its level is low.

So what would happen if the next time your body cries to restore a nicotine level - and you just didn't restore it. Well, you would be retraining it. The good news is. You can reverse 10,20,30,40,50 years worth of training about a thousand times quicker than it took to train it. Your body will move closer to repair itself than to harm itself. It knows this because the subconscious is a subordinate to the conscious when you are driving information into your mind. Your conscious mind is allowed to take control and over-ride and reprogram your entire system.

Think of your mind like a computer. It has a ton of bad programming in it. Smoking is like a virus... the more you do it - the worse your computer runs. You have to clean out your computer - reprogram it-reboot - regroup - rearm - reinvent yourself - become a new person.

You are going to have to dig deep down inside and clean up the past information that was destroying you thought processes and program it with the ones that function. Nothing worse than a fried hard drive. You have to clean up your system before its fried.

A crave is like a warning sign that if you let this go on too long, it could be too late to fix it one day. You never really know how much time you have - but, if you go to work right now and remove all your damaged parts and replace them with working parts - you can once again function normally. Until then - you are really using damaged information system and its never going to function properly.

Hope that shed some light on craves and what people are doing with them. That was the long answer ... the short answer would be to take up any conscious or soothing activity right away - reading, standing in the shower, or exercising are the best three that i know of.

Good luck!

~Billy

Another brilliant post Billy keep em coming, I print them off and read em mate when the going gets tough

STAYING STRONG LIKE THE EBT